Cradle Call
by DreadNot
Summary: The last night before Anders' Calling.  Hawke/Anders slash


_A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist._–Stewart Alsop

_Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave._–Joseph Hall

The nightmares were growing worse, even with Justice to help him hold them at bay. Every night he woke in drenched in sweat, fighting to keep his screams locked in his throat, struggling to keep from waking Garrett, although Garrett always woke and put a hand on his chest as though to help slow his racing heart.

Garrett had stopped asking what he dreamed years ago, for which Anders was eternally grateful – it saved him from lying. There were so many lies that stood between them, and every one of them ached like a wound that could never heal.

Every time he considered unburdening himself of the weight of those lies, he inevitably chose not to, telling himself that while truth was a virtue, hurting someone he loved just to ease his own conscience was not.

Now, though, he finally understood what older wardens had meant when they said that he "would know" when his Calling came. The taint was finally winning out over that spark that let a warden survive the Joining. It burned in his veins, invaded his dreams, and slowly, it was starting to crowd around his waking thoughts.

It was time to go. The Deep Roads waited, and he could do his last duty as a warden, even if he had set aside the mantle of warden decades ago. He didn't attend the parties, but he was still a warden for life.

And for death.

He rolled onto his side and saw Garrett watching him, his face silver and gray in the moonlight that streamed in through the window.

"Bad one?"

Anders forced his lips to curl into a ghost of a smile. "Already fading."

Garrett just nodded and held his arm out over the blankets, encouraging Anders to slide closer, which he did, grateful for the familiar comfort of his lover's embrace.

"I love you, you know," he said against Garrett's chest.

"I know." Garrett kissed the top of his head and rubbed small circles on his back ."I love you. Always."

The lump in his throat was physically painful, but Anders swallowed it and forced his breathing to stay even.

"Well," he murmured when his body was calm again, "since we're awake…."

Garrett chuckled and Anders felt the same warm thrill he always had to hear that sound vibrating deep in his chest.

"Are you propositioning me?"

Anders praised the warm night that had let them sleep naked and slid a hand down Garrett's side and over his hip to cup his groin, simply holding the weight of him in his hand for the moment.

"If I were?" he asked, giving a small squeeze. "I know I'm not as young and pretty as I used to be, but I get the job done."

"Shut up," Garrett chided, leaning his weight forward to press into Anders' hand more. "You are better than a fine wine, finer than an aged cheese, fairer than—" he lost track of his similes when Anders shifted his hold to wrap his fingers along his shaft and let the foreskin shift under his thumb.

"Less talking, more loving," Anders said before he caught Garrett's nipple lightly between his teeth.

They weren't young men anymore, and they had been together for many, many years, but Anders thought if he could have lived to one hundred, he would still react to the sound of his lover's sighs and faint sounds of pleasure.

He had touched Garrett hundreds, thousands of times, but he approached this last time like their first time back in Kirkwall would have been if he had not been almost out of his head with years of longing. He tried to taste him as though he had never tasted him before, feel him grow hard under his hand as though it was first time, raise his lips to kiss Garrett almost as desperately as the first time.

He rolled his hips, rubbing himself against Garrett's thigh as he grew hard, focusing only on the moment, not on past regrets or a limited future.

"I love you."

"Always."

He touched every part of Garrett, arms, legs, back, even sliding down to tickle the soles of his feet with the faintest static shock just to hear his laughing protest and feel him squirm.

This was a time to make memories that would last beyond the rest of his life.

He touched him, he tasted him, but when Garrett was hard and they were both ready, he could not bear to look up in his face. They made love with Garrett spooned against his back, his breath hot on his nape while they rocked together, his fingers twined tightly with Garrett's, his moans turning to sobs that were only partly pleasure.

And when they were both spent, he held Garrett close with a hand on his hip to keep their bodies from separating as long as possible, as though he could fend off the future as long as Garrett was inside him.

But all things must end. Eventually Garrett's breathing smoothed out into the slow rhythms of sleep and his body relaxed, slowly sliding free from Anders, leaving him feeling far emptier in his soul than in his body.

He waited until he was certain Garrett was deeply asleep before he untangled their arms and legs and slid out of bed. He gathered his staff and old robe from where he had put them knowing this time would come and left a letter on the table by the door.

He left the home they had shared without looking back, afraid that if he did, he would never find the strength to leave and Garrett would have to watch him go mad when the taint claimed its due.

_Dearest Garrett,_

_When you find this, I will have gone. There are no words to express what you have meant to me for all these years, and I will love you to the Void and beyond._

_I am so sorry that I could not say this in person, but you would always be the hero and where I go, you cannot follow._

_I cannot ask you to forgive me, but I ask that when you think of me, you remember that I loved you more than my own life._

_Yours always,  
>Anders<em>

Anders needed no maps to know where to go. The answer to that question was always simply, _down._

He had his staff and little more, but it was satisfying to let loose after so many years of a quiet life in hiding after he and Garrett had left the revolution to younger men and women.

It was easy down where the darkspawn waited; if it moved, kill it.

So, when he heard the crunch of stone under a boot, he whirled, a spell already at his fingertips only to see Garrett, his sword slung over his back, his hands up to show he meant no harm.

"What are you doing here?" Anders hissed. "You can't be here! How did you find me?"

Garrett shook his head and kept coming.

"Go home!"

"No."

Anders shook his head. "No. This is not your time. Go home. Please!"

"No."

"How…?"

"Bethany. She's a much worse liar than you are."

Garrett reached him and drew him into his arms, and despite himself, Anders melted against him. "I let you have your secrets, I let you pretend the nightmares were something else, I let you have some normalcy, but your Calling is my Calling, and you don't get to leave me alone. Until the day we die, Anders. I meant it."

Yes, that was something he knew about Garrett, something that had been the foundation of his life – when he said something, he meant it. He let Garrett hold him and remind him of that until he was strong enough to draw away.

"You're right." He turned to stride into the dark, trusting Garrett to be at his side. "Until the day we die."


End file.
